Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Donald Rumsfeld's magical power
Donald Rumsfeld recently published a memoir in which he literally tells the world that he is not to blame for anything that went wrong in Iraq or Afghanistan. That he regards delegating authority to subordinates as a magical power by which he absolves himself of all responsibility is only reinforced by the following newly published memo. In it, he asks his Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, for some quick and simple solutions to some of the most vexing and complex problems facing the United States, some of which Rumsfeld himself was in large part responsible for creating.
This is not a parody.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Nir Rosen attacks those who reported his mocking Lara Logan rape, continues to condemn Logan
In a column at Salon and in an interview with a blogger, Nir Rosen has said that journalists motivated by conservative bias and careerism are to blame for the troubles he's experienced since he mocked the gang rape and beating of Lara Logan. In an interview with an NYU blogger (read here), Rosen says:
I think certainly my tweets have been unfairly attacked and blown out of proportion.
...and...
I was not aware of the right wing attack machine waiting to take me down, nor did I realize, even though I was criticizing the celebrity culture in the media, what happens if you mock one of those celebrities, especially if you do it in such an offensive way as I did.
That said, I find the reactions sanctimonious and silly. A few crude jokes on twitter do not make a philosophy, they just make you a momentary jerk. I didn’t mean it and I have a record of eight years of risking my life for justice to prove my values. Had I been a right-wing writer I doubt this would have happened to me.
...and...
Others include Michael Totten, Lee Smith and Jim Geraghty of the National Review, who led the crusade against me... They are using it to further their careers.
Geraghty has quite reasonably responded in a blog post that he had hardly heard of Rosen prior to this incident and has no expectation of gaining anything personally from reporting on him. (Read here.)
In a column he has written for Salon, Rosen also strongly condemns columnist Jeffrey Goldberg for using the phrase "this Nir Rosen person" in a blog post condemning Rosen's tweeted attacks on Logan. Rosen finds that phrase offensive and accuses Goldberg of "act(ing) like he's never heard of me". That's one interpretation. Another is that Goldberg was just expressing disdain for him, or saying that he considered Rosen insignificant. Maybe Goldberg actually never heard of Rosen -- that is possible. In response to this perceived slight, Rosen writes that Goldberg "has blood on his hands" for his support of the Iraq War. That's an ad hominem argument Rosen may want to make in another context, but making it in this context makes it seem petty -- merely a tit-for-tat attack on someone who has wounded his pride. That Rosen considers such an insignificant perceived slight noteworthy shows the sheer narcissism of the man. Why does he consider this issue worth discussing in his column at all? How can someone so willing to be offensive to others have such a glass jaw when it comes to comments about him?
Even as he apologizes for his tweeted mocking statements about Logan, Rosen continues to defend them, casting his difficulties in terms that reiterate those statements and makes further implicit attacks on her. He casts himself in positive -- even heroic -- terms, claiming that he has suffered condemnation because he is a champion of the downtrodden and Lara Logan a supporter of the powerful. He also implicitly condemns her as being preoccupied with the impact the Egyptian uprising would have on Israel.
This is not the first time my words have landed me in trouble. I have been challenged many times on my support of resistance movements and my support of engaging with America's enemies, and I have never and will never apologize for those stances.
...and...
My resentment of Logan was because I felt she was a terrible journalist who supported wars that I had covered.
...and...
So why all the focus on Logan? The U.S. media did not care when Egyptian journalists (or any other Egyptian) were being jailed. Only when pretty white people showed up did Egypt really start to matter, and then, they were preoccupied with the scary Muslim Brotherhood possibly taking over, or what would happen to poor Israel now that there was a "threat" of democracy in Egypt.
This is why I wrote in a Twitter that I was already rolling my eyes. Even before we knew what happened to her, I knew how to anticipate the media response in the United States. So Logan and Anderson Cooper have become the story, instead of the thousands of Egyptians who have far more compelling stories.
You can read his Salon column here: "How 480 characters unraveled my career".
Interesting headline he chose for that column. Rosen accuses those who condemn his mocking of Logan's rape as careerists, yet focuses his first published piece about the incident on its impact on his own career. That seems odd. Maybe this careerism charge is a bit of projection on his part.
Rosen gives every indication of using his career as a sort of ego trip in which he fantasizes about being a revolutionary. That he wants the world to see him as a freedom fighter is very clear from the following images which he has posted on his Facebook page. (More here.) The first is him.
Rosen's Facebook page also includes a photo of his toddler son dressed in a Hezbollah t-shirt. (Although Rosen sees fit to post it publicly, I won't post it here. You can view it for yourself here at Rosen's Facebook page.)
UPDATE (2/10/2011): Since I posted this, Nir Rosen has wisely removed the photo of his son, which was captioned "Hizb in the house", from his Facebook page.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Iran's dictators support some social-media uprisings, oppose others.
Iran's dictatorship struggles to find ways to support the democracy movements spreading through other Muslim countries while violently suppressing free expression at home. They attempt this to accomplish this act of radical compartmentalization by characterizing the democracy movements as expressions of Islamist, anti-secular ideology. In doing so, they contradict most participants in these movements and many of their western supporters who tend to minimize the role of political Islam and portray Islamists as moderate or even secular. In a speech broadcast on the main station of Iranian state TV on February 4, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's so-called "Supreme Leader", announced Iran's support for the uprisings in Tunis and Egypt, characterizing them as representative of popular support for theocratic rule, and as fundamentally opposing Israel and the U.S. Khamenei also began enunciating Iran's opposition to moderate, non-Islamist elements within those uprisings. Those he characterized as the products of American and Israeli conspiracies to counter the wave of Islamism he purports to be sweeping the region. (Click here to view video of his speech.)
After violently suppressing peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Teheran with police and troops on Monday, Iran's rulers showed their vision of legitimate expressions of Islamic democracy by using a session of their parliament to rally support for the summary execution of opposition party leaders. Video of this amazing spectacle, which comes from Press TV via CNN, is viewable below. Watch it and imagine this parliament in control of a nuclear arsenal.
After violently suppressing peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Teheran with police and troops on Monday, Iran's rulers showed their vision of legitimate expressions of Islamic democracy by using a session of their parliament to rally support for the summary execution of opposition party leaders. Video of this amazing spectacle, which comes from Press TV via CNN, is viewable below. Watch it and imagine this parliament in control of a nuclear arsenal.
As Iranian pro-democracy activists begin a new wave of Facebook and internet-based organizing in opposition to state repression, Iran has found an "off switch" to interrupt such organizing in Egypt during the uprising there. The now-departed Egyptian regime used their control of the physical and logical means of international communication to shut down the internet (read here). In the case of Iran, which had already blocked an estimated 5 million websites containing material deemed threatening to the survival of the Islamic Republic, they added a block on all sites containing the term "bahman", the Farsi name for the current month in the Iranian calendar, have slowed broadband speeds to a crawl and interfered with cell phone service. (Read here.)
Now Iranian TV has revealed in the below-embedded news report the shocking news that the internet and Facebook are the products of American imperialist and Zionist conspiracies to monitor and control the world. The report also reveals that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered to reward Israelis who kill Palestinians a payment of an unstated quantity of gold coins, presumably what the target audience for the report would believe to be the preferred form of payment for Zionist assassins . This theater-of-the-absurd disinformation, which features an overdubbed mistranslation of a speech by Israel's Minister of Science Daniel Hershkowitz, is viewable below.
(Source: MEMRI: Iranian TV: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Is a Zionist who "Offered a Prize for Israelis who Kill Palestinians" Hat tip: Harry's Place)
Now Iranian TV has revealed in the below-embedded news report the shocking news that the internet and Facebook are the products of American imperialist and Zionist conspiracies to monitor and control the world. The report also reveals that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered to reward Israelis who kill Palestinians a payment of an unstated quantity of gold coins, presumably what the target audience for the report would believe to be the preferred form of payment for Zionist assassins . This theater-of-the-absurd disinformation, which features an overdubbed mistranslation of a speech by Israel's Minister of Science Daniel Hershkowitz, is viewable below.
(Source: MEMRI: Iranian TV: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Is a Zionist who "Offered a Prize for Israelis who Kill Palestinians" Hat tip: Harry's Place)
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Mob yelled "Jew! Jew!" as they raped and beat Lara Logan
From the NY Post:
A network source told The Post that her attackers were screaming, "Jew! Jew!" during the assault. And the day before, Logan had told Esquire.com that Egyptian soldiers hassling her and her crew had accused them of "being Israeli spies." Logan is not Jewish.Read here.
In Friday's attack, she was separated from her colleagues and attacked for between 20 to 30 minutes, The Wall Street Journal said.
Her injuries were described to The Post as "serious."
Lara Logan, Victim of Rape and Beating in Egypt, and of Callous Slander in U.S. Media
It's best not to blog while angry, but here goes. CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was the victim of a sustained sexual assault and beating by a mob in Cairo yesterday. on Friday, Feb. 11. That horrifying news has elicited outrage and best wishes for her recovery from most of those who've commented about this.
I know of three exceptions -- shameful, inexcusable exceptions.
I know of three exceptions -- shameful, inexcusable exceptions.
First: the freelance journalist named Nir Rosen, a fellow at NYU best known for reporting he did in Afghanistan embedded with Taliban troops, has tweeted repeatedly in a manner which disparaged the assault on Logan as minor, called Logan a "warmonger", and expressed regret that she would now become a "martyr". All this was based on Rosen's view that Logan was a "cheerleader" for the Iraq War. Rosen also wrote a not-so-subtly homophobic tweet wishing that Anderson Cooper, who was beaten by a Cairo mob last week, had also been the victim of a sexual assault like Logan. (Read here.)
Rosen's misogyny, pettiness, extreme callousness and homophobia elicited a barrage of tweeted criticism, to which Rosen replied with the following non-apology apologies:
“Look, she was probably groped like thousands of other women, which is still wrong, but if it was worse than [sic] I’m sorry.”...and...
“ah fuck it, I apologize for being insensitive, it’s always wrong, that’s obvious, but I’m rolling my eyes at all the attention she will get.”
Then a real, albeit terse, apology:
“As someone who’s devoted his career to defending victims and supporting justice, I’m very ashamed for my insensitive and offensive comments.”
As controversy has heated up over his comments this morning, Rosen now tries to put out the fires with more apologies in emails to journalists who have reported on this. (Read here.)
Second: LA Weekly has posted on their blog a column by Simone Wilson headlined Lara Logan, CBS Reporter and Warzone 'It Girl,' Raped Repeatedly Amid Egypt Celebration. That headline must go down in history as one of the worst, combining a report of brutal gang rape with the terms "It Girl" and celebration. In terms of bang for the buck, LA Weekly takes the prize for the most offensiveness in the fewest words. Simone Wilson's story under that headline details her complaints about Logan. As they say, timing is everything. Her main complaints are tha Logan is good looking (her appearance is referred to six times in the brief article, including a reference to her as a "firecracker", and the article is inappropriately illustrated with a large photograph of Logan in a clingy low-cut gown) and that she has criticized the media for failing to report about violence against foreigners in a manner commensurate with the gravity of that violence. That Wilson and LA Weekly use their report on Logan's brutal beating and gang rape to settle those scores with her indicates that they not only treat violence against foreigners without the appropriate gravity, they treat violence in general without the appropriate gravity.
Third: Debbie Schlussel is an anti-Muslim shock-blogger -- sort of a low-rent Pamela Geller. Schlussel writes (read here):
As I’ve noted before, it bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of just how “peaceful” Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart. Still, it’s also a great reminder of just how “civilized” these “people” (or, as I like to call them in Arabic, “Bahai’im” [Animals]) are.
Schlussel then posts a horrifying quote briefly detailing the attack, and comments:
Hey, sounds like the threats I get from American Muslims on a regular basis. Now you know what it’s like, Lara.
Schlussel then quotes a CBS statement requesting privacy for Logan, to which Schlussel replies:
I just love it when the people of the profession of “the public’s right to know” suddenly want “privacy.” Tell it to your next interview subject, Lara. Of course CBS has no further comment. Wouldn’t wanna impugn the “peacefulness” of “Religion of Peace” animals, would we? Now, if they were Christians or Jews, well, then there would be comments galore.
So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that’s a hope that’s generally unanswered.
This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.
Now that’s all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”
Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].
The sheer narcissism, insensitivity, misogyny and bigotry of these comments by Nir Rosen, Simone Wilson, LA Weekly and Debbie Schlussel speak for themselves. In the case of Nir Rosen, the only serious journalist among this crowd, this is an especially shocking and disappointing display. In the case of LA Weekly, a
All of them should examine their motives and explain their behavior to their readers. If they don't do that, they don't deserve to have readers.
UPDATE (2/16/2011 11:30 am):
I just noticed that Nir Rosen's twitter avatar was an image of a keffiyah clad figure holding up an assault rifle before a flag of a single Palestinian state.
UPDATE (2/16/2011 1:45 pm):
Now a fourth incredibly callous instance of blaming the victim. Conservative blogger Jim Hoft has posted a column blaming Logan for causing her own assault. He "asks" whether her "political correctness" and sense of personal privilege led to her being attacked. (Read here.) Regular readers of Hoft's oeuvre, or those who follow the links in his column, will learn that has previously referred to Logan as a "whore". (Read here.) Nice guy.
Isn't it bad enough that he used that term once before? Does Hoft really believe it's appropriate to relink to that slanderous comment again in this context?
UPDATE (2/16/2011 3:00 pm):
Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic has some background on Nir Rosen tweets. Rosen seems like a piece of work. (Read here.) Funny how nobody seemed to notice until now.
I've just spent an hour reading Rosen's Twitter feed, and it's alternately amusing and appalling. Much of it is taken up with petty griping -- he writes repeatedly about his desire to sit in business class ("I fucking hate people in first and business class when I'm not one of them," he wrote.) His hatred of Lara Logan (as well as Wolf Blitzer, James Rubin, Tom Friedman and many other people) is on full display. On September 29th of last year, he wrote, "Washington Post and International Crisis Group turned down my job applications so I can be as vulgar as I want again. Yay! Fuck Tom Friedman.") There is a good deal of violent longing, as well. He wrote on December 15th of last year, "just saw footage of Greek rioters beating a former minister. Now there's accountability. I wish we had some of that." And he wrote, "'Lets not forget the pain and suffering this war has caused,' says Wolf Blitzer, not Iraqi pain of course. I wish pain and suffering on Wolf."
Many of his tweets are given over to expressions of hatred of Israel, and wishes for its destruction. He openly advocates for violence against Israel: "Yes to a 3rd Intifada. This time hopefully with the support of the Palestinians citizens of 'Israel,'" and he states that "Israel's existence is a blight unto the nations." He also appears to believe that Iran should be a nuclear power: "I wish all these Sunni Arab dictators on Wikileaks would explain what the hell is so bad about Iran having nuclear weapons." On October 10th of last year, he tweeted, "new racist Israeli citizenship law should be celebrated. It exposes what Zionism really is, will further ostracize Israel, speed its demise."
The creepiest tweet of Rosen's is this one, I think, from December 3rd, 2010: "On Hannuka, Just think, if only the Greeks had been better at counterinsurgency we wouldn't have these problems today. Where was Petraeus?" The meaning of this is fairly obvious: Hannukah marks the defeat of a Syrian-Greek empire by a Jewish insurgency. If the Greeks had won, the Jews would have been slaughtered. He also wrote that same day, "genocide is modern concep (except when jews are doing it on god's orders in the old testament) greeks were just hellenizing."
Eric Boehlert of Media Matters has tweeted in Rosen's defense that Rosen has taken responsibility for his actions, which puts him above conservatives in Boehlert's book. (Read here.) This isn't' about ideology, Eric, it's about basic human decency. More than an apology is required here. Rosen's comments were pathologically partisan, and a merely partisan defense just won't do.
Monday, February 14, 2011
How stupid is Fox News?
They believe that they may have video of the fourth horseman of the apocalypse at a Cairo demonstration. Okay?
This is an incredible piece of video. At the 1:20 mark you clearly see some greenish figure moving through the crowd. Between the crowds of protesters and barricades, the video shows a flowing, pale green image that resembles an erect rider atop a horse in Medieval-like barding.
The ethereal figure remains for a few moments before floating over protesters' heads and off the screen.
Is this the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse?"
Friday, February 11, 2011
What Tariq Ramadan prays for
Amjad Khan, writing at Harry's Place, has translated a prayer given by the putative moderate Islamist Tariq Ramadan at a public event in France. Remember as you read it that apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood cite Ramadan as the face of what they say is its moderate politics.
Ramadan:
Allah we ask you because you are Allah, strengthen the faith of our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Allah strengthen their faith in Palestine and make them triumphant over the enemy, Your enemy, the enemy of the religion (Islam) with your mercy, oh, Generous one. Allah strengthen their faith in Palestine, in Chechnya, Afghanistan, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, in Egypt, Sudan, Kashmir and in every land and on every battlefield. Allah, strike our enemies, Your enemies, the enemies of the religion (Islam).
Thursday, February 10, 2011
CODEPINK gloms onto Egypt protests
CODEPINK has glommed onto the Egypt protests. The group's leader Medea Benjamin is in Cairo where she has posed for photos the group has posted to their flickr page. She has also made herself available for interviews with U.S. media, as indicated in the current headline on their blog. (Has anyone taken her up on this offer?)
Medea Benjamin with Cairo demonstrators
read more here: CODEPINK�:�CODEPINK Peace Activists Join Egyptians on the Ground in Cairo, Available for Phone Calls, Interviews
By the way, the photo below was posted to the CODEPINK flickr page. If there are any Arabic-speaking readers out there who can translate the sign and identify the statue, I'd appreciate it. (Post translation to comments.)
UPDATE:
Turns out that CODEPINK's mission was to -- wait for it -- deliver flowers to the protesters. (Read here.) I suspect that this delivery was to be photographed and publicized. According to Benjamin, their mission was thwarted when the taxi in which they were travelling toward Tahrir Square was stopped by angry pro-Mubarak forces armed with guns. The pro-Mubarak people entered the taxi at gunpoint, confiscated passports and held them for some tense period of time. Eventually Benjamin and friends were freed with the intercession of a protester who had trained at Fort Eustis in Virginia and had pro-American sentiments. Upon their release, the taxi driver said to them "No flowers. Hotel." and drove them back from whence they came. No doubt, he didn't want to lose his life bringing daisies to Tahrir Square.
CODEPINK now brings frivolous, pointless gestures to important political events internationally.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Colorado Sheriff threatens to arrest federal employees. Claims U.S. gov't intends to give forest resources to China as "collateral on debt".
Last November's election brought a number of Tea Party candidates to office, among them Dennis Spruell, a longtime police officer who was elected Sheriff of Montezuma County, a rural county in the Four Corners area of southwest Colorado ("2,000 square miles of canyons, national forest, mountains and high altitude desert").
Last Saturday evening, Sheriff Spruell gave a live interview to the Political Cesspool, the radio program of the far-right racist organization Council of Conservative Citizens. Spruell's presence on that program, which backs David Duke for president in 2012, is troubling enough. According to the most recent census, 25% of the residents of Spruell's county are American Indian or Hispanic. Those citizens can hardly be reassured that the man they depend on to enforce the law in their county thinks it appropriate to appear on the nation's most popular explicitly racist program -- one that touts "free speech for White Americans", promotes racist organizations like American Renaissance and individuals like David Duke and promotes racist depictions of African-Americans, Jews and Hispanics.
What Spruell had to say on that radio program was more troubling still. Spruell revealed that he believes that federal employees working on roads in the federal forest and park land in his county may be secretly conspiring to give natural resources to China "as collateral for (the national) debt". Although he offered no evidence for this odd belief, he made a very real and very troubling threat to counter this purported conspiracy. He announced that he would arrest any federal employee who attempted to close a road on federal land in his county. He said that he intended to do this out of his deep, abiding love for the constitution.
The interview is available at about 1:00 of the mp3 at this link. The conspiracy theory mongering begins at about 10:30. (Link goes directly to mp3 file. The interview can also be heard at link #2 of the 2/5/2011 program here.
Sheriff Spruell may think that his constituents want him to protect national forests from the Chinese by arresting Forestry Service employees, but he'd be wrong. About 1/3 of Montezuma County is federal forest which is administered by three federal agencies, and many local residents object to a recently announced plan to end public access to some Forest Service land (read here). Spruell is now using that controversy as a springboard for his broader agenda of opposition to federal authority and promotion of conspiracy theories. When asked by a reporter for the local paper what issues they wanted him to deal with, they universally said crime related to local production of crystal meth, which is endemic in the area. (Read here.) Interestingly, not one of them cited countering the threat of Chinese encroachment on U.S. forests as a concern.
Spruell was brought to the attention of the Cesspool radio show by a supporter, Montezuma County resident Mike Gaddy, who actually conducted the interview. Gaddy is a former leader of the anti-immigrant Minutemen vigilante group and a blogger at the Lew Rockwell website. There, you can read his many columns advocating gun ownership, predicting a civil war in which federal agents will soon confiscate guns and place gun owners in concentration camps (read here) , claiming that U.S. gun control laws are taken word for word from those of Nazi Germany (read here), supporting the Confederacy as opposing a "one world government" (read here), and implying that Pearl Harbor, the TWA 800 crash, the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 were done by the federal government (read here). He also claims that the Tucson massacre was a "false flag" undertaken by the federal government to justify further restrictions on gun ownership (read here).
(Nice stuff they publish at Lew Rockwell. Say, wasn't he Ron Paul's top advisor for several decades? Just saying...)
Mike Gaddy
Think about the following quote from Gaddy as you picture Sheriff Spruell and his deputies attempting to arrest U.S. Forest Service employees in Montezuma County:
Gaddy and Spruell deliberately characterize a run of the mill conflict between local and federal interests in extremely heightened, militaristic and conspiratorial terms, creating a hostile environment which may endanger federal employees. They should be deeply ashamed.
UPDATE (2/10/2011):
1) The interview was touted on the "White Pride" website: http://white-pride.org/2011/02/political-cesspool-tonight/.
2) The chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, Dick Wadhams, has announced that he will step down, ending his bid for another term. (Read here and here.) He's quoted as saying:
While that comment on the Colorado GOP in the Tea Party era was targeted more at Tom Tancredo and other statewide politicians than at Sheriff Spruill, it certainly applies.
Last Saturday evening, Sheriff Spruell gave a live interview to the Political Cesspool, the radio program of the far-right racist organization Council of Conservative Citizens. Spruell's presence on that program, which backs David Duke for president in 2012, is troubling enough. According to the most recent census, 25% of the residents of Spruell's county are American Indian or Hispanic. Those citizens can hardly be reassured that the man they depend on to enforce the law in their county thinks it appropriate to appear on the nation's most popular explicitly racist program -- one that touts "free speech for White Americans", promotes racist organizations like American Renaissance and individuals like David Duke and promotes racist depictions of African-Americans, Jews and Hispanics.
What Spruell had to say on that radio program was more troubling still. Spruell revealed that he believes that federal employees working on roads in the federal forest and park land in his county may be secretly conspiring to give natural resources to China "as collateral for (the national) debt". Although he offered no evidence for this odd belief, he made a very real and very troubling threat to counter this purported conspiracy. He announced that he would arrest any federal employee who attempted to close a road on federal land in his county. He said that he intended to do this out of his deep, abiding love for the constitution.
The interview is available at about 1:00 of the mp3 at this link. The conspiracy theory mongering begins at about 10:30. (Link goes directly to mp3 file. The interview can also be heard at link #2 of the 2/5/2011 program here.
Sheriff Spruell may think that his constituents want him to protect national forests from the Chinese by arresting Forestry Service employees, but he'd be wrong. About 1/3 of Montezuma County is federal forest which is administered by three federal agencies, and many local residents object to a recently announced plan to end public access to some Forest Service land (read here). Spruell is now using that controversy as a springboard for his broader agenda of opposition to federal authority and promotion of conspiracy theories. When asked by a reporter for the local paper what issues they wanted him to deal with, they universally said crime related to local production of crystal meth, which is endemic in the area. (Read here.) Interestingly, not one of them cited countering the threat of Chinese encroachment on U.S. forests as a concern.
Spruell was brought to the attention of the Cesspool radio show by a supporter, Montezuma County resident Mike Gaddy, who actually conducted the interview. Gaddy is a former leader of the anti-immigrant Minutemen vigilante group and a blogger at the Lew Rockwell website. There, you can read his many columns advocating gun ownership, predicting a civil war in which federal agents will soon confiscate guns and place gun owners in concentration camps (read here) , claiming that U.S. gun control laws are taken word for word from those of Nazi Germany (read here), supporting the Confederacy as opposing a "one world government" (read here), and implying that Pearl Harbor, the TWA 800 crash, the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 were done by the federal government (read here). He also claims that the Tucson massacre was a "false flag" undertaken by the federal government to justify further restrictions on gun ownership (read here).
(Nice stuff they publish at Lew Rockwell. Say, wasn't he Ron Paul's top advisor for several decades? Just saying...)
Mike Gaddy
Think about the following quote from Gaddy as you picture Sheriff Spruell and his deputies attempting to arrest U.S. Forest Service employees in Montezuma County:
What will be the reaction of the soldier from Colorado who is confiscating guns and placing so-called domestic terrorists in detention camps in Ohio when he gets word other soldiers are doing the same to his family and friends back home? Who will soldiers and law enforcement officers side with ... If military and law enforcement personnel begin to side with the citizens, will the fedgov [sic] call in United Nations forces to subdue those who cherish personal freedom and will fight to retain it? Regardless of which series of events occur, Americans will be the losers. Brace yourselves and prepare, this is going to get real ugly.
Gaddy and Spruell deliberately characterize a run of the mill conflict between local and federal interests in extremely heightened, militaristic and conspiratorial terms, creating a hostile environment which may endanger federal employees. They should be deeply ashamed.
Sheriff Spruell should renounce his bizarre conspiracy theory and apologize to the innocent federal employees he has threatened to arrest. Moreover, he should make clear to the public that they should take no vigilante action against federal employees. Spruell needs to make clear to Park Service, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management workers that they should not fear to do their jobs. For him to do otherwise would compound his already grossly irresponsible behavior. What Spruell advocated in his radio interview is merely vigilantism masquerading as law enforcement. Like many on the Tea Party right, he is all too anxious for local authorities to use force against the federal government in order to prevent illusory conspiracies. In that respect, for them, the means justifies the ends.
UPDATE (2/10/2011):
1) The interview was touted on the "White Pride" website: http://white-pride.org/2011/02/political-cesspool-tonight/.
2) The chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, Dick Wadhams, has announced that he will step down, ending his bid for another term. (Read here and here.) He's quoted as saying:
I have tired of those who are obsessed with seeing conspiracies around every corner and who have terribly misguided notions of what the role of the state party is.
While that comment on the Colorado GOP in the Tea Party era was targeted more at Tom Tancredo and other statewide politicians than at Sheriff Spruill, it certainly applies.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Google Executive Emerges as Key Figure in Egypt Revolt
from WSJ.com:
More than a week after his mysterious disappearance in Egypt, Google executive and political activist Wael Ghonim will be released from government detention on Monday, according to his family and a prominent businessman.
During his disappearance, Mr. Ghonim, a father of two who is in his 30s, emerged as a central symbol of the antigovernment protests, cast as the face of a movement and hero in the cause of democracy. Protest organizers in Cairo's central Tahrir Square adopted him as a symbolic leader. Suspecting his arrest—but having no proof—they declared in speeches that they wouldn't leave the square until he was freed. Marchers carried homemade signs emblazoned with his name. At the same time, some local media suggested the political activities of Mr. Ghonim, who is Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, make him a traitor to his nation.
On Sunday, Egyptian authorities broke the silence on Mr. Ghonim's fate, according to his brother, Hazem Ghonim. "They told us they'll probably bring him to us, and that he will likely be escorted by security," he said from Cairo.
Billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris also said on Sunday that Egypt's vice president told him Mr. Ghonim would be released. "The boy is a hero," Mr. Sawiris said. "When he is released he will become the living hero of this revolution."
an excerpt of "CHOMSKY GRILLING LINGUICA" by Rochelle Owens
I was at a dinner party a dinner party I was
invited to the house the house of the famous American
linguist Noam Chomsky I was at a Chomsky dinner party
a party given by Chomsky a Chomsky dinner party Chomsky was
grilling chunks grilling chunks chunks
of Portuguese chunks of Portuguese sausage chunks linguica
linguica chunks of linguica Chomsky was grilling linguica
hosting a dinner party an informal dinner party at
his house his house on Cape Cod in Wellfleet Wellfleet
he was chomping on linguica Chomsky chomping
chomping Chomsky chomping linguica in his house
famous linguist and anarchist too
Israelphobic pious progressive Jew
Chomsky radically chomping off chomping off then spitting out
a burnt black chunk of linguica chomping off then spitting
out a flawed and repellant ideology ideology
a flawed and repellant ideology chomping linguica in his house
famous linguist and anarchist too
Israelphobic pious progressive Jew
Chomsky radically chomping off chomping off and spitting out
a burnt black chunk of linguica Chomsky grilling linguica
hosting a dinner party saying the pro-Israel Jewish lobby are
the bad Jews Chomsky sucking a Portuguese sausage chomping
linguica in his house
famous linguist and anarchist too
Israelphobic pious progressive Jew
hosting a dinner party an informal dinner party chomping
linguica at charming Chomsky house on Cape Cod in charming
colonial Wellfleet Chomsky radically chomping off chomping
off then spitting out a burnt black chunk of linguica
Chomsky radically chomping off chomping off then spitting out
a burnt black chunk of linguica chomping off then spitting
out a flawed and repellant ideology ideology of a
famous linguist and anarchist too
Israelphobic pious progressive Jew
Chomsky radically chomping off and spitting out a burnt black
chunk of linguica saying members of progressive movements
who happen to be Jewish are the good Jews ideology of a
famous linguist and anarchist too
Israelphobic pious progressive Jew
Chomsky radically chomping off a chunk of bloody ideology
grilling it well done burning all the blood away offering
the chunks to his cronies Zionism equals Nazism chomping down
hard a chunk of bloody ideology Israel an isolated pariah
linguistics linguica ideology smoked tongue enormous respect
of leftists for Chomsky tongue chomping down hard and chomping
off a bloody chunk of his tongue bloody chunk of Chomsky tongue
gossip and slander Israel an isolated pariah
Gossip and slander loshen hora
Gossip and slander loshen hora
a chunk of bloody ideology
famous linguist and anarchist too
Israelphobic pious progressive Jew
read the rest here:The New Verse News: CHOMSKY GRILLING LINGUICA
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